Narnian Daemons
by ReconstructWriter
Summary: Most children fantasize about eagle and tiger daemons but settle for robins and cats. A few lucky ones get the cool bears or beautiful swans. Then there were the Pevensies. Daemon AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I love stories that explore the Pevensies between Narnian adventures or during the golden age we don't hear much about and thought I'd write my own daemonic twist.

 **Peter**

Most children fantasized about lions and swans and eagles but settled for cats and robins and squirrels. A few lucky people got bears or wolves as their forever forms but small, common-place or unheard of animals packed the train crowds.

Then there were the Pevensies.

Peter was the first, his daemon so close to settling when the evacuation started. She stepped on the train as a Newfoundland. At their stop the sweet, fresh scent of country air called out the African wild dog and she loped easily toward the massive mansion. The slightest urge to take wing prickled her back, but not enough to shift out of the comfortable canine form. The many wild shapes of childhood no longer held appeal.

Narnia happened. A wild, magical world his siblings and he stumbled in. Torn by war. Peter and Theodora stood before beavers and siblings, bleeding from a dozen wounds, while Maugrim and his police bared bloody fangs. A dog couldn't fight an entire wolf-pack, not even a Roman war-dog. They circled closer, confident against a single canine.

Until Theodora transformed.

Larger teeth. Larger claws. Dark fur grew tawny and the snarl of a dog became the roar of a lion. Theodora pounced, gripping the lead wolf in her teeth and shaking him like a hare. To one side, Lucy's Basil tried for the same form but the head and shoulders lost a muzzle and a griffon attacked the pack instead. To the other side Susan's daemon spat, targeting the eyes.

Distantly, muffled hooves echoed. The witch. Like foxes pursued by hunters, they fled the evil sleigh and the witch within. Maugrim howled and his wolves, though wounded, followed fleeing prey. Too quickly.

"They're gaining," Peter shouted. His lion was large, larger than any lion of the other world, but not large enough to bear a rider. Claws transformed to splayed hooves. Legs lengthened. Fur grew thicker against winter, white around the throat, brown elsewhere and Peter leapt on the back of a reindeer. Theodora could bear him in this form, though he was large for a thirteen year old boy. Clarence managed a similar transformation and Lucy's Basil flew ahead of them, carrying Mrs. Beaver. On these forms they raced for the river as winter's chains broke.

In the distance, a crack echoed like an earthquake. Ice split. A hundred years of pent up waterfall roared to life, bursting through the stagnant channel as a dam burst. The Pevensies couldn't slow down. Didn't dare stop. Not with the wolves and witch on their tails. They and their deamons could have fought the pack but petrifying magic would slay them. Peter urged Theodora to the water.

She leapt, wrapping herself in the Newfoundlander's comforting form, a breed perfect for rescues. But the strength of a hundred and seventy pounds of dog was nothing against the raging current, making up for a century of imprisonment. Larger. Stronger. Paws shifted to flippers. Her body swelled. Ice smashed against her walrus bulk like arrows against a shield. Fragile, white fingers clutched thick, rubbery hide as she dragged them both to the safety of the shore, transforming into a grayhound to flee.

Flee to the lion. Sighting Aslan, Peter knew this was no mere daemon—unless part of God's soul took animal form. Words hid in his throat. He barely had enough strength to bow. "We have come, sire."

"Well done."

At camp Peter trained to exhaustion with sword and lance, burdened by armor and shield in the scant time before they saw the enemy army. A horde of monsters straight out of myth and beasts from primeval ages.

"This is no place for dogs," Theodora said. Her canine body swelled, becoming something Peter had never dreamed of. Beating powerful wings, she joined the other griffons hauling stones to bomb the tyrant's army.

Not enough. Not with the witch's forces charging heedlessly around fallen boulders. A single rock smashed three or six or even a dozen enemies and a hundred more would boil over the dead. They needed more teeth. Freed of the stone, Theodora swooped to the ground, snatching and ripping a vampire apart as she flew. Leonine hind-feet hit earth and changed to massive talons. Light beak grew heavy, full of daggers. Her body swelled from pounds to tons. A tyrannosaurus rex charged alongside Peter, thunderous roar pausing even the mightiest.

Not enough. Not against the tidal-wave of numbers. "Fall back, draw them to the rocks!" Peter bellowed.

"Fall back to the rocks," Theodora echoed. The sheer size of the army alone would be enough to slaughter them in the open. They retreated, Theodora's steps heavy with exhaustion and pain. Though arrows and spears weren't enough to take down such a massive beast, they had tried. Beside her Lillina the unicorn bore an equally exhausted and pin-cushioned Peter who looked ready to melt, armor and all. Theodora gratefully shrank into the form of a dog.

"You said…no place…for dogs."

"One last time," Theodora panted.

Lillina jerked. Peter started, touching a shaft protruding from her side as the unicorn lost strength and footing. He flung himself away, rolling to a stop and staring at the setting sun silhouetting the top of a helmet. "Lillina," he whispered. No answer save silver blood sinking into sodden ground. Probably dead. "Theodora."

"Get up now. The witch is breaking our army, splintering our tactical retreat to full-out flight."

The armor had gained a ton since Peter first put it on. His arms were numb. Fauns and leopards and centaurs and falcons, the mighty army Aslan had trusted him with, fled the white witch. Defeated.

A crack, like shattered glass magnified a thousand-fold, echoed across the battlefield. A soft, familiar groan of pain. Peter stood just as Edmund crumpled to the ground, Elanor falling beside him. No. Not now. Not his brother. The witch raised a sword against Edmund.

Peter's armor felt light as paper, his sword a feather. Theodora transformed into an eagle and he matched her, bound for beat of wing. The witch drove the sword down. He leapt like a lion. Steel clashed against steel as they landed beside Edmund in a tangle of armor and weapons. Peter slammed metal-clad fists into her face, her throat, any bare flesh he could. She grabbed his arms, twisted her whole body and reversed their positions. The eldest Pevensie brought his sword between them and the witch leapt away. He was on his feet a second later, catching a lethal blow with his shield.

He barely matched her. Peter hadn't used a sword outside fencing until Narnia but the witch had grown too reliant on her wand. Her form was excellent but her timing was slow, her movements jerky. He barely caught stroke with shield, keeping it between himself and her as he gave thrust for thrust. Without protection, she would have cut him to ribbons but the steel plates sapped his strength. The tip of her sword hit below the shield, sliding into a groove between two plates of armor. His knee. Peter fell screaming. Theodora hit the witch with all the speed and strength of a golden eagle, driving talons deep into vulnerable facial flesh. It felt worse than drinking raw sewage, though thick talons could barely feel. Both fell slack with agony but the false queen staggered away, clearing her eyes. She slashed. Blood splattered. Hitting the ground, Theodora shakily shifted and Peter mounted a unicorn once more. They charged, Aslan's name erupting from two throats. The remnants of their shattered army surged, Oreius in the lead. Distant thunder rumbled but the sky was clear. Reinforcements. Not enough. Not against the bulk of the witch's army charging like a damned river burst. They needed more.

Werewolves pounced. Theodora gored the first and trampled the second but the third knocked them apart. Jadis stabbed. Peter parried, gritting his teeth against every shriek of severed tendon and slashed bone. His arm trembled. The witch pressed him down. Wound hit stone and his knee spilt blood and agony afresh. Peter twisted on instinct. She over-balance. He slammed his shield against her blade and slashed clumsily upward. Jadis twisted and the blade sliced her collar-bone, missing her throat. Rolling away, she snatched another fallen sword and leapt to her feet, slashing with both blades at once.

Needed more.

Narnians shouldered forward under Oreius's orders, spears and shields in a phalanx. The first wave of enemy crashed. Between giant slabs of stone, the monsters couldn't bring their full force to bear but the sheer weight of minotaurs and vampires and werewolves and more horrible beasts was like a battering ram. The Narnian formation staggered back.

Peter blocked one sword with his shield, another with his own blade but the witch drew back and struck again like lightning, using her greater mobility against him. Move or die. Every step stabbed his knee afresh. Another blade caught his arm. Strength flowed with blood out of him.

More.

Theodora changed.

Deep inside Peter, something cracked. His daemon was turning and he could feel the echo of her effort—bones stretching to fill something too big for either of them. Claws grew into massive talons, more massive than the t-rex. Fur turned hard and thick. Ten thousand shield-like scales covered her body, straining them both. A hail of arrows flew. They bounced off. Great wings shot out from Theodora's sides. She raised jaws able to swallow the witch whole. Peter's vision grayed. Too much. Too big. Lungs burned like he was drowning. Heart pounding like he climbed a mountain. Body weakening like they he was bleeding to death. Peter couldn't feel his knee as it hit stone a second time.

Her next war-cry brought forth fire.

Black spots ate his vision but Peter clung grimly to his daemon.

 **A/N:** Hope everyone enjoyed. Since Peter is so often portrayed—and from what little we get in the books—shown as a knight and warrior as well as a king, I thought it fitting to have him settle on the battlefield. I'll be posting the others in the order they settle. Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you everyone who reviewed for your kind words and advice. Next up, of course, is Susan.

 **Susan**

Susan felt her settlement coming. Clarence lingered longer and longer in each form and as she'd finished her promises to her mother and boarded the train, he shifted into an alpaca. He didn't shift back. Not to enjoy the country-side like Peter's Theodora. Not when it was more convenient to take a different form indoors. She was convinced the alpaca was it—until all four of them stumbled into the impossible: fantasy made reality.

Lucy's country in a wardrobe.

None of Narnia should be real. A land found in the back of coat storage? A country where it was always winter and never Christmas and had been for a hundred years? Everything should be dead. Yet this strange land held equally-strange beings, a chief of secret police who signed things with a wolf's track. A missing faun—no, not the baby deer—and a talking beaver, not a proper daemon but an actual beaver. A land of magic that wasn't supposed to exist.

No. If she kept that train of thinking up, she'd never stop and there were more important questions. "Who is this chief of police? What does he and his…supervisor have against humans?"

"Ah, well there is an ancient prophecy…"

Of course, why not. In a land of talking beavers and lupine chief of police ruled by an evil witch—let's throw in a prophecy.

Whether or not she believed it, the ruler did and intelligent wolves tracking them down believed it enough to chase the five of them to death. "We can't possibly out-run them. They're not hampered by humans." She turned toward rushing footsteps and stood her ground. Clarence proved he hadn't settled yet. His alpaca form swelled with muscle, skeleton stretching without changing. Cheeks bulged. As the first wolf leapt for the strange group, he spat, hitting the eyes. Better spitting than touching the talking not-daemons with her own. Her siblings grimaced in pain and their daemons shuddered every time claws and teeth met wolf flesh.

The pack withdrew but the alpha wolf threw back its head and howled.

"Reinforcements," Peter said grimly.

"We can't fight them all off," Susan warned.

"We can't run," Peter glanced at the beavers. They could ride their own daemons but their hosts would be helpless.

"Yes, we can." Lucy shed her fur cloak and began wrapping Mrs. Beaver in it.

"Excellent idea," Susan took off her fur coat, which puzzled the wolves, while Clarence morphed again. The wolves were built for deep timber forests but they could not run over the snow like a reindeer, certainly not so wounded. Susan carefully cradled the coat-bundle that held Mr. Beaver, keeping him from falling or touching Clarence.

As swiftly as winter changed to spring, war descended on Narnia, another sadly normal thing in this magical land, even if she was being drafted to battle alongside her brothers. When she saw Aslan, bowed, shorn, tied and _murdered_ sacrifice so her younger brother would not be slave to evil, she knew this country was worth fighting for. As she and Lucy rode on Aslan toward the witch's castle, Clarence shifted in mid-play with Basil. Swans were fierce birds, but an eagle had greater weapons. They played while they could, in those precious moments of peace. How long had it been since Clarence and Basil had frolicked like that? Well, Basil still flew around all the time.

Though Clarence kept a wary eagle's eye on the operation, the witch hadn't left so much as a single bird or beast to guard the castle.

"Don't complain," Clarence said as Susan stepped away from the revelry of old and new friends united in freedom. "There will be more than enough fighting."

Susan shuddered, remembering the falling bombs, the explosions too close and screams too near and above all of it the high whines of planes.

Battle. She heard the awful roar of so many beings and beasts and people killing and dying and so many feet hitting the ground so fast, a mile out. The noise reverberated through body as much as ears. She could smell it. The wind changed direction and the awful stench caught her full in the face: blood and bile and bowels of tens of thousands. Then the horizon opened to a valley. A swathe of broken ground and broken bodies; on her own two feet, she would have stopped.

But Clarence was a good companion. Where he shied away, she stepped forward and where she hung back, he forged ahead. On his equine back, she could only cling to him as they plowed to the battle. "This won't be enough," She shouted. "A horse? Those monsters will shred you like meat at a factory."

Pale-gray fur darkened and thickened to heavy slabs of gray hide like plate armor. His head swelled with weight. A lance jutted from his nose and he charged the enemy. His back broadened until Susan couldn't keep her seat. Gripping her bow and slinging off her quiver, she leapt to a sniper's spot and let her first arrow fly.

* * *

"Ugh." Susan grimaced at her own gore-encrusted skin like a snake longing to shed. Blood, bile and filth from enemies and friends alike. "Battle is disgusting."

Clarence limped to her side, gray hide stained red. "I do not think I like this," he rumbled, shedding the rhinoceros's form for a snake's.

Susan swallowed bile. "It was necessary." She glanced across a field of carcasses, "Let us hope…no, let us ensure it will never be necessary again." She tore her cloak into strips and knelt before the first of the fallen.

"…feel so frail."

"Blood loss," Susan said numbly and tied a compression bandage around the chest-wound. "Will he make it?" she asked Clarence softly.

As a viper, her daemon could sense changes in body-heat, "I think so, but others need help." They walked among the fallen, bandaging bloody wounds and setting broken bones with torn cloth. Nearby, Lucy revived the dying with a drop of cordial.

"How necessary is practicality in this land of magic?" Clarence questioned quietly.

Susan did not answer, tying off a splint here, yanking out an arrow there, granting merciful death to dying enemies. Mindless, disgusting work. Her thoughts turned back to the mansion. The witch was dead. Surely this world of magic and Aslan and miracles in a bottle had no more need of four children? "We'll not be needed much longer," she thought to Aslan's discussion with Peter, who was as much a grown man as she was a grown woman. "What manner of royalty would we make? Knowing bloody nothing about leading or governing, let alone ruling."

"You would make royalty who know their limits," someone who was not Clarence spoke. "And who would go beyond those limits for country and creature." Aslan stared from her to the wounded she had bandaged, "You cannot call upon healing magic, but lives saved with hard work are still lives saved." He smiled a lion's smile. "You have already done more Susan the bloody-handed, than most royalty has ever done for people in their lifetime; however, if you so prefer, call upon me to take you to your world and go with my blessing. Your reign will not be easy."

Then he was gone, leaving a warmth stronger than a beam of spring sunlight on a cool, crisp day. Clarence turned equine, "He still gives me the chills. The good kind, but chills. Now what?"

Susan glanced between the battlefield and her daemon and smirked in a most un-royal expression, "You know what. Don't act so coy." She vaulted on him and they joined the others toward Cair Paravel.

* * *

"I do not think I can stay an alpaca in there," Clarence warned.

Susan stopped gawking at the castle carved out of a mountain in the shape of a medieval king's dreams. "That is what you say about," She waved a hand toward the great stone towers, smooth and durable as the peak they were hewn from, "This?"

"Alpacas don't live in castles beside Queens."

Susan looked her daemon in the face, "Are you okay? With this future?"

"Are you?"

The lantern-post. She could still remember where it stood. They could leave for the wardrobe in the other world, in England. Her mother waited there. Another war against power-mad tyrants waited there. War she could now envision in macabre detail.

"No, but here we can do something." Susan dismounted and entered a cavern large enough for Theodora's final form. Clarence followed, horse form shifting with each step. Light gray turned blinding white. Hard, thick horse hooves narrowed and clove, fitting for a creature of deep, wild woods instead of man's hard-packed roads. His tail grew leonine. Fitting, she didn't feel like her old self. The old Susan would have frozen in horror at the bloody battlefield, not shot arrows and bandaged wounds. The old Susan couldn't have stood tall and calm before a medieval court of mythical beings, Clarence flowing beside her with faerie grace. The old Susan fluttered frantically inside her chest. A crown settled upon her head.

A horn settled upon Clarence's head.

Cheers swelled.

She glanced at the thousands within the throne room and many more around the castle, knowing this was only the beginning. Every face—furry, feathery, scaly, leathery—beamed at her and paws, claws, wings, flippers and fins applauded her and Clarence.

"Why?" she asked Mrs. Beaver on the dance floor.

Webbed paws clasped her strange human ones. "Because you are Narnian at last."

 **A/N:** Susan's daemon settled into a unicorn, a creature known for its gentleness and grace in medieval mythology yet armed with a horn for defense. In a round-about way I thought a magical creature suited Susan's practicality in a magical world.

Also I thought Cair Paravel looked like a very man-made structure in a country of beasts and beings so I modified it as something being carved out of a cave system running through a mountain.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thanks again for favorites and follows. Here's Edmund.

 **Edmund**

Edmund's whole being was captured by the Turkish delight. He didn't notice Elanor shifting into a Racoon, didn't notice he had a daemon until she gobbled a piece. "Hey, paws off." He brushed her aside.

A flicker of hurt jolted their bond. The pair paused, staring at half-eaten sweets with wide eyes and open, sticky mouths. Then the beautiful white lady pressed a glass of something foamy and piping hot and sweet to his lips and hunger devoured his unease. Edmund grabbed a bulging handful of sweets while Elanor became a pelican, scooping up half the sweets into her bird mouth. The boy snatched another handful from her half-open mouth. The daemon leapt on his hand, a chipmunk, and stuffed three pieces into her cheeks. They tore the pretty dessert case apart, licking off bits of sugary sweetness until the last lingering taste dissolved from their fingers and mouths and the shredded box shone. Edmund stared mournfully. Elanor became a dog to beg the white lady.

The witch only bid them goodbye, somehow shifting them from the warm sleigh and fur cloak to the cold snow beside the dwarf. "Bring your brother and sisters. I shall see you soon," she sang as winter white swallowed her whole.

Elanor moaned, "Edmund…I do not think we should have done that." She fell to her side, "I don't feel so good."

Edmund felt much the same, but his sickness gave him the attitude of a hungover alcoholic. "Then you shouldn't have stuffed your face," he snapped.

"You stuffed your face more," Elanor snapped back. "Like you didn't even notice me—"

"Edmund," Lucy shouted, bursting into the clearing and their argument.

* * *

Around the others, Elanor became weirder. She hadn't been near settling, but wasn't childishly playful like Basil. Now she morphed an elephant, trunk first. Another moment she shrank down to a weasel, when Lucy's 'magical wardrobe world' was brought up. From rat to fox to snake, Elanor transformed and didn't settle after Edmund's deceit was discovered.

"Edmund, is something wrong with your daemon?" Mrs. Beaver asked, glancing at bared fangs and quivering rattlesnake tail.

"Nothing," Edmund said quickly.

Peter frowned, "Elanor's been shifting constantly. I thought she was trying to tell us you lied about Narnia. She turned into a skunk when we caught on—"

Edmund glared at his daemon, who hissed back.

"—But we're safe with the beavers and she's a snake."

"I'm just nervous. I mean…a lion? A witch?" Guilt twinged in his heart at their worry. Or was it only Elanor? Of course, they turned back to the beavers and ignored their own brother completely. Elanor turned wolfish. Edmund made up his mind—time to go.

The warmth of the beaver's lodge only made the bitter cold of a hundred years' winter a hundred times worse. Night reigned. Not the night of a city lit by cars and late-night businesses and lamp-posts lining the streets. Not the night of the country where houses kept hearth-fires and crop-fields welcomed the light of the moon. No, this was true wilderness night where dense canopy blocked all but the faintest fleck of moonlight. Edmund couldn't see Elanor just ahead, guiding him with her wolf's nose.

He tripped over her. "What? Why'd you stop?"

"Maybe we should go back. It's cold out here. I'm cold." She curled in on herself.

"Quit complaining, you've got a fur coat." Turning away, he plowed onward. The bond pulled harshly; Elanor winced and followed.

By the time they reached the gates of the grim castle, Edmund was having second, third and tenth thoughts about setting foot in that icy palace. Its chill was worse than a blizzard wind ripping away marrow-heat and the shadows and statues made the courtyard more foreboding than a graveyard at night. Despite his numb feet and ice-bitten face, he would have turned and marched all the way back to the beavers if not for his stomach. Hunger won out. For a piece of the witch's Turkish Delight he pushed the gates open. Elanor followed, head bowed, ears drooped and tail tucked. "Besides, weather's too beastly to turn back. A blizzard could start any minute," he reasoned.

"The others probably already left the lodge," Elanor said, but didn't believe herself.

"Yeah."

As they passed the creepy life-like statues, Edmund tried to cheer himself up by drawing funny faces but with every granite beast or being they passed, Elanor's head drooped further and her tail-tip pressed deeper between her legs. Her gray wolf thinned into a red wolf, then shortened into a coyote.

"Halt! Who goes there." The living wolf made Edmund jump back and Elanor shrink to a fox.

After jabbering out their reason for trespassing, then being escorted to the intimidating Queen by a talking wolf, Elanor was too small for any canine. She gnawed nervously at Edmund's shoe, a mouse beneath the ruler's icy stare.

"You return alone?" she thundered.

The two shrank further. Edmund felt like shifting into a mouse himself as words dribbled out his mouth, "Not far, beaver's house…can I have some Turkish delight?"

The witch wiped Turkish Delight or his siblings' cruelty and ignorance from his mind. She snatched his Elanor from the ground like a hawk.

Someone had grabbed Elanor one other time in his life. All-consuming weakness had once wracked his body as his soul rebelled from such an invasive touch squeezing his most intimate self. No pain, no sickness had crippled him worse.

Until now.

The slightest brush of witchy fingertips on Elanor's fur made meaty, bully hands feel like a gentle caress. His stomach dropped to his bowels as he fell to the icy floor. Cold gave no relief. Vomit burned his nose and mouth, splattering the floor as he thrashed and curled in the puddle like a skewered bug. The touch was disgusting, corroding, worse than sewage and acid put together; the darkness of death given tangibility, the texture of evil given form, the worst torture condensed into flesh.

Edmund could think none of this. He was driven mindlessly mad by the witch's bare fingers squeezing around the most vulnerable part of his soul. Clawing, scrabbling, curing into a ball before thrashing wildly. His nails reddened with blood, his skin darkened with bruises but the pain was sweet relief compared to the worst violation. That the Queen hadn't a drop of real human blood flowing through her veins should have made it bearable.

It was worse.

Edmund would have torn himself open with his bare fingernails and teeth to get a shred of that filthy touch out. His heart churned nauseously. Blood dribbled out his nose and mouth to join the acid and puke beneath his head. His soul should have died beneath that evil touch. He could feel the evilness through Elanor more harshly than the bitter blizzard on his journey to the icy castle. The witch squeezed. Elanor flopped boneless as a corpse while Edmund lay in senseless nausea-agony.

"Get up."

A fist gripped his collar, his limbs knocked into icy pillars, the blistering touch of a gale ripped every scrap of warmth away, but only the witch's claws digging in Elanor's flesh mattered.

He screamed a dying rabbit's scream.

"…up. Up! Useless human creature." Grated the witch's vile voice. Nausea dimmed.

Dropped in the mud was the most beautiful treasure—dirty and bloody, wings broken, too small and frightened in the form of a butterfly but free. Only Elanor mattered, fluttering toward him. He cupped her in gentle hands like a porcelain doll.

"Walk! And if you think of escape I will make you regret the day you were born," the witch snapped.

Edmund cradled Elanor in his arms as he stumbled desperately to his feet, cursing himself, Turkish Delight and his first sight of the witch. What hells of torture would she inflict to make him regret birth? He dared not try her patience and find out.

Reality was putting one foot in front of the other. His tongue a shriveled lump in his mouth. Glimpses of beautiful greenery, dazzling blooms, snow melting into fog and vanishing beneath the sun. His stomach a pit. Elanor in his arms, the witch's touch clinging like tar, but the spring sun's shining rays gradually washed it clean.

Rough hands pinned him to a tree. A raspy grating sound echoed in the fuzzy clearing. What now?

Elanor understood. Her tiny body elongated as scales appeared in patches and over-sized fangs filled her mouth. A spitting cobra. Venom-sacs filled and she struck twice—first the witch, then the dwarf fell screaming. Edmund staggered free and picked up his daemon. Now. Run. They fled straight into the rescue party.

* * *

Elanor was no dragon. While Peter prepared for battle and Susan and Lucy followed Aslan, Edmund sent his daemon in her smallest form to spy. From a moth or bat to eavesdrop on the enemy to a serpent targeting enemy generals—after her touch, any other disgusting touch was a mere annoyance—to a pigeon.

They warned Peter about the attempt to cleave the Narnian army in half. They scouted the rocks and lead the retreating Narnians through the best gap. As the witch bore down on the army with sword and wand, Elanor took scorpion form. "Remember what the others did, what got them turned to stone," she cautioned.

Edmund nodded and drew his sword. The unnoticed scorpion stabbed the witch. With a roar, she leveled her wand at the tiny daemon. He sprang like an owl, sword first.

Crack.

* * *

Despite defeating the witch, Edmund didn't feel like a king. Redeemed, but not a country's ruler, not like Peter and Theodora, dragons of the battlefield. Not like Susan and Clarence who settled to a unicorn as the crown settled on her head. Elanor kept shifting. He was still a boy.

"Disappointed?" Elanor asked.

"No, still feel more boy than king." He laughed, "If you shifted now I'd probably faint from nerves."

"Good. I'm not ready to settle yet either." She paused, "But we should pretend to."

From that night on Elanor kept the form of a fierce, fast griffon when they were publicly close. Privately she shifted into a bat, a rat, a mouse, a dozen different types of birds, a snake, insects and stranger as needed. The pair rose in the shadows they'd once scorned and feared.

His settling didn't take place on a battlefield or celebration or any momentous day. Just another Tuesday like a thousand others when he received intelligence from a magpie.

"Assassin. Gray silks. East wall!"

Another day of keeping petty little trivialities from intruding on the lives of his busy older siblings. Despite their home's smooth walls and towering height, Susan and Peter—and, well, probably him too—attracted quite a few problems. The humanoid didn't stand around to listen but leapt out the nearest window.

"Down," Elanor called.

Edmund bolted out the room and down two flights of stairs to intercept, dodging a dozy rabbit and rolling beneath an owl late to the parliament before breaking open the nearest window. Elanor swooped right behind him, springing off his shoulder and into battle.

A flock hovered around the nearly invisible figure clinging to the wall. A strange flock, though not so strange for Narnia, with everything from hummingbirds to vampire bats. None of them were half the size of a Narnian mouse but so many pointy beaks and sharp fangs rendered size meaningless. The figure swung a rapier-style short-sword, repulsing a dozen attackers.

Two dozen struck at feet and head and the remaining bloodless hand.

"Surrender."

"No," the assassin said coldly.

"Alright, if you want to hang there all night."

A hummingbird zoomed for the right eye like a missile. The assassin ducked but took a dozen hard pecks to the ankles. "You'll kill me."

"We'll try you," Edmund corrected.

"Because Narnian justice is so benevolent boy?"

"That's king to you," shrieked one of the flock. Elanor.

"Because everyone gets a trial. Law means nothing if it isn't applied to all."

"I'll never find work again."

Edmund scoffed, "There's always work for assassins," Elanor silently alerted the guard, "Some of them must do nothing but get paid to try and kill us."

The first attack had been terrifying. The fear never lessened, just grew easier to conceal with boredom.

A flock of starlings upset a foot. The assassin jerked, holding on by sliding finger tips. "Okay, okay, okay. A trial. Sounds good."

"Elanor?"

"I can't," she said simply and brought him a rope.

The night guard took it from there, leaving Edmund to catch up on sleep before the next trial. He examined Elanor's tiny, furry form, "Is this it?"

"Yes. At least I can still fly."

"And you've got a weapon, and you're inconspicuous. If you could only pick one this is the best of any."

"Exactly," she paused, "You still are not disappointed."

Edmund laughed, "What would I do with a lumbering dragon? Or a unicorn? What kind of spies would we be?"

"Not ourselves." She flexed one wing and licked blood off, "I wouldn't mind delaying announcements though."

"Sod announcements, the others can figure it out themselves."

 **A/N:** In the books Edmund is best known for being just, because he was a reformed traitor and knows both sides of justice. However I also like the fandom depiction of Edmund as a spymaster and king of shadows who gathers a lot of information to himself so I combined the two. Hope you guys enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Thanks again for all the favorites. It's time for Lucy's settlement. Edit: Fixed a continuity error pointed out by The SilverHunt3r. Thank you.

 **Lucy**

Lucy had been far from settling and settling far from her mind when they'd stumbled into enchanting Narnia. A thousand new forms to try and Basil gleefully flittered from one to the other like a bee in the garden of Eden. He tried to copy Mr. Tumnus but fell into the shape of a golden ram. He shifted into a jackalope, pure-white and wide-footed for the snow. Then leapt into the air, landing as the dream of little girls everywhere: a unicorn.

"…and there were griffons and great eagles and dragons," Mr. Tumnus waved his hands and like magic the hearth-flames curled into animal shapes. With a delighted warble Basil shifted from one fantastic being to another, halted only by the faun.

"Um dragons are rather large," Mr. Tumnus warned, "My den."

"Oh, oh Basil nothing big inside. Remember what mother always said."

"Very well, a bit too large for me." Basil shrank into a tiny fae-creature, delicate as a moth, and fluttered toward the tea, which threatened to put him to sleep in the cup.

But just like the stories, there was darkness in magic. Beasts alongside beauties, ravenous dragons and evil witches that make it always winter and never Christmas. "…and I have joined her. Oh I am such a bad faun," he covered his eyes.

"But you won't, dear Mr. Tumnus, you won't," Lucy pleaded. Basil's form blurred, claws and fangs and thick mane growing.

"No, no of course not. I cannot even bring myself to touch your Basil, not without permission. My orders…but no, we must hurry back."

The three of them snuck back, Basil shrank into the form of a griffon. "Good for watching and fighting."

The world of Narnia grew darker for her. What should have been a joyous meeting between family and friend turned tragic at the ruined home. The dreaded note. They snuck for their lives, ran for their lives and finally turned to fight the wolves. Basil strained to shift into a lion but only managed the body before becoming a beast even Lucy hadn't heard of, "I'm sorry, I'm just…it was so hard."

"Never-mind that, we must go and quickly," cried Peter as his Theodora transformed into a reindeer.

"Oh Basil, could you become one of Santa Clause's Reindeer?" Lucy begged.

"Here…yes. This is a world of magic. We could become _anything_." Off they ran, then Basil kicked his hooves and leapt. Gravity vanished. He kicked again and they rose, flying above the snow and streams and into the greenery Narnia was becoming.

"Kill them."

Wolves leapt at them but couldn't reach trailing hooves. Peter fell as the river freed itself from icy bonds. Lucy and Basil swooped down, her daemon shifting from an aerial deer to a sea-horse as they plunged after him.

When she and Susan followed Aslan into the night, Basil again tried to become a lion. Maybe he could ease the great one's burden? But just as mane rippled around his throat he shrank down to a cat. Head hung, he moaned, "I was just trying to help."

Aslan smiled very faintly and nuzzled the little cat, "One day. For now we must part. Thank you…and farewell."

Two daemons and two humans anxiously crept into the brush where they could see the low lights, the stone table bathed in an ominous glow and surrounding it in the dark—monsters. The nightmares of humanity made flesh and worse things for which humanity had no words. Basil the cat bristled all over as he crouched and Clarence shifted into a black swan, tucking his head away from the gruesome ceremony.

When the witch fell upon Aslan with her dagger, Susan turned Lucy away too. Only Basil watched the dagger's horrible halt, freezing as though a ghostly blade pierced his own breast.

Not until the last of the beastly howls died in the distance did the four emerge. Lucy and Susan with white, wet faces; Clarence dragging black wings through muddy earth; Basil changing into another magical form unlike any bird Lucy had seen. As large as Clarence with a shorter neck and different beak and talons and the most pitiful feathers. They hung limp and dark and ragged like those of a dying creature, with each step another broken tail-feather fell to the ground. "Dear Basil, oh please I can't lose you as well," Lucy swept him in her arms.

"I'm sorry Lucy, I don't know why, it's too..." he halted with a retching sound.

Susan approached first, "Let's get rid of these horrible ropes first." The girls tried to loosen knots, Clarence attacked the ropes with squirrel teeth and Basil ripped at them with his beak but ropes covered Aslan like a shroud. Every moment Basil shed another broken feather. Every moment he ripped at the ropes, never stopping, not when mice joined them, not until the horrible chords were gone.

Basil was nearly featherless. Lucy gathered him up again and held him close to her chest as she stomped her feet for warmth. It was the coldest, darkest, most silent part of the night. Until a horrible crack broke it.

"No," Lucy yelled.

"What is this? More magic?" Susan asked.

The first shafts of sunlight shot over the horizon. Basil spread his bare wings, a curl of flame dancing on his head. "Yes," he said in a voice of pure hope, "Oh yes." He burst like a bonfire, rising over the clearing, trilling a song that raised her heart.

Lucy raised her eyes toward her daemon and saw what he saw.

Aslan.

Shining like the sun. Hope made tangible. His laugh was music, his words song. As hard as Lucy had wept for his death, she now wept harder for his life. Tears of joy. Tears Basil shed beside her as they hugged the great lion, breathing in the smell of his glorious living mane, burying hands into his warmth.

Just as he had been reluctant to flee the old, decrepit phoenix body, now Basil could not leave this fiery young one. He and Clarence danced in the air above Aslan. At the witch's castle he soared into the courtyard with his song, weeping tears of joy and relief as Aslan breathed life into the stone statues. As they raced toward battle, he swooped in the lead, setting the witch's chariot alight. In the aftermath, he blazed trails in the late-night sky, writing their victory for all to see.

"Is this it?" Lucy asked Basil as the party settled. Her daemon hadn't shifted back and she felt every nerve twist tight, waiting for his answer.

Basil transformed from phoenix to snow-white lamb, "No, not yet. It seemed close but I don't feel quite like settling just yet."

Lucy let out a breath of relief, "Oh thank goodness. Me too." She stroked his soft wool. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to never settle? All these magical forms to try."

"I know," Basil transformed into a Pegasus. "A pity Theodora has settled already, but she wasn't the exploring type." He reclined on soft heather. "Oh, this is good as a bed."

Lucy tucked herself under his wing. "Narnia is incredible." She sighed, "I don't ever want to leave."

"Yes," Basil curved a wing over her. "I want to keep this place a part of us. In our hearts."

Lucy's smile widened, "Now that is something worth settling for."

* * *

They took their lessons together—not in old, dusty classrooms of before—and Basil morphed constantly, getting new ideas from the creatures their teachers told them of, or the creatures their teachers were. Only when the subject was turned to Tash did he stop in the form of a tiger with bared teeth, "That name is foul to me." But he never stopped for long.

He shifted when they traveled and when they welcomed other travelers. Aboard a ship for the first time he gleefully traded feathers and fur for scales as Lucy ran to the point of the prow, carved like a swan's head. Basil was a monkey among dryads, a phoenix alongside fireworks, a unicorn beside the wounded and a Pegasus with children. He never stopped.

"None of them are quite right. They're all wonderful forms but…" he trailed off, knowing Lucy was well into settling age.

"You don't want to be stuck in them," Lucy, now fifteen, finished. "If a form is something you're stuck in, it's probably not the right form."

"Right," Basil relaxed, grateful for the understanding.

Still, months and years passed without settling and both wondered if they ever would. That thought brought as much conflict as picking the wrong form. Lucy didn't want to trap Basil, but she did want to become…herself at some point instead of guessing forever.

Just before her eighteenth birthday, Lucy and Basil searched for a grove of Aslan. "Miss. Woodswort said they are made of the very first trees and sacred to him," Basil recited, bounding happily. "They say the trees are the tallest and biggest of all."

"Hard to imagine," Lucy stared at the trees surrounding them, each one so thick ten people could have hugged the tree without touching fingers and so high they couldn't see the tops. These were less like trees and more like the great buildings she faintly remembered. "What could be bigger than—oh." She stopped speaking. Stopped walking. So did Basil.

They were in a clearing, one made not by human axes and saws but by swaths of canopy like thunderclouds which cowered the encroaching tundergrowth. Lucy and Basil faced one such massive tree.

It's roots, each thick as the trunks they'd been admiring, gaped like a pair of castle doors. It's flaking bark was thick and rough as a cliff-face. A human could have run up that trunk like a squirrel. Part of Lucy longed to climb but she hesitated as a Christian child might hesitate to draw on figures of Jesus. This tree reminded her of church, or the temples of the Tisoc's land, but only a little because those were man's creations, decked in riches. This living skyscrapers needed no human touch to evoke awe. It had been growing since the beginning of the world.

In awed silence, Lucy and Basil approached the tree, walking around it to find the great arch of a root from the first tree's peer. They felt like ants walking between those trunks and their legs grew weak at the sight revealed. A whole ring of trees, each as wide as a war-ship and so tall they could look up, up, up and only see the bottom trunk and first branches hanging hundreds of feet up. The glade was large enough to fit a lake in, cloaked in the darkness where flowers bloomed in colors she'd never seen before—some black as midnight, others glowing like candles.

Wildness hung in this grove of trees, a beauty woman could never prune, a majesty man could never tame. Lucy took sharp, shallow breaths of air never tainted with soot. The trees were silent as sleeping giants. The sort of trees who had been growing since the beginning of time.

In the sacred silence, Basil shifted. A mane of fur appeared, not feathers; paws replaced claws; a muzzle instead of a beak—not a griffon or a phoenix but the lion he'd never quite managed. A lion that out-shone a phoenix. Golden richness in his coat, fiery warmth in his mane, eyes like suns. They both knew it was the last time, though neither could call this form _settling_. Basil lifted a paw, "This feels right but…is it wrong?"

"Aslan?"

"Well met Queen Lucy." The resemblance between Aslan and Basil was clearer now as they stood together. No one matched the brightness of Narnia's protector, but they could have been father and son.

"Is this form wrong?" Lucy asked, hanging breathlessly for his answer like the child she no longer was.

The great lion bowed his head, nose-to-nose with Basil who rose to meet Him. The touch felt like no other, not the horrible nausea of violation from a monster's touch, nor the electric tension Grover had sparked after she'd given him permission. No, this touch warmed her like hot chocolate on Christmas morning, like a favored childhood church song, like flying on griffon-back into the rising sun. All joys at once and a thousand times deeper.

"Be yourself and it is well." The clearing felt warmer and more golden, lingering beauty from Aslan's departure. Lucy finally named what bloomed within her heart, what she had felt before but never so keenly.

Faith.

 **A/N:** Whew, Lucy is settled at last. Just to be clear, Basil Is Not Aslan. I struggled a bit with this chapter because I wanted to show Lucy as more Narnian than the others (though everyone settled into magical forms in response to the magical world). She's closer to Aslan and has more faith than the others throughout the series but definitely never wants to take his place.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Thank you for your helpful comments, favs and follows. Last chapter—the Pevensies return to England.

 **Unsettling**

Brush became fur coats, wet leaves and moss hardened to wood beneath their feet and the four monarchs stumbled out the wardrobe's door. Peter rolled aside to make way for Theodora. A tight fit for them but how would she enter? He heard wings, saw a flash of golden scales softening. Talons spread wide as she landed on his shoulder as an eagle. "This is," he clutched a youthful throat, "Unsettling."

"Impossible," Susan whispered, voice too high.

"We really are young again," Edmund said, watching his Elanor shift from bird to insect, bat, bee, mouse, spider.

"I suppose we are," Lucy said. Basil prowled behind her.

* * *

Years and months later, children were returning from the countryside, now that the raids were assuredly over. Helen Pevensie shoved people aside, calling for them while her daemon, a honey badger, snarled very unlady-like things about departing gentlemen who wouldn't move their lazy behinds.

Why hadn't Achilles settled as something winged? Birds and bats and winged insects beat and buzzed over packed heads while larger daemons claimed precious pockets of free space and smaller ones huddled against their humans. Her children would probably find her first with their shifting daemons—unless Peter had settled already. Theodora had lately taken only large canine forms. Should she look for a dog?

The crowds fell back, ten thousand voices growing to a roar over the squeal of train-brakes. Helen could only hear the nearest bits and pieces.

"That's not possible, such a creature doesn't—."

"—last bomber raid."

"Knew they brought those children home too soon—."

"—stayed in the country."

"What? What happened?" The crowd was too close, smog and smoke thick and bitter as ash. Achilles snapped at ankles. "What about the train?" What about my children?

Another woman glanced at the lines on her face with softened eyes, "Oh relax, the train made it, the bombs only hit the luggage compartment. But the most incredible miracle happened…"

Helen stopped listening after the word 'bombs'. "Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy!" she called, shoving deeper into the horde.

She elbowed one man, side-stepped a child and stumbled into a canyon in the crowd. Only one thing could move a mob like this: a daemon. A big one. She squeezed between two other gawkers at the edges. Taboo as it was to risk touching another's daemon, maybe she could find her children straining to catch a glimpse.

A shadow fell over her and suddenly her eldest, alive and whole, was before her. "Peter?" She wrapped her arms around him, held him tight to feel the rise and fall of his living chest. The slickness of liquid and stench of blood hit her. She pulled back, arms and hands coated red. "Oh God, Peter?"

"Please calm. This is not my blood," he opened his mouth to add more but a flash of confusion crossed his face, then it settled to a mature, soothing look. "I am well mother."

The more formal address startled her, as did the strength of his hug, but nothing astonished her half so much as looking up. "Impossible."

She had seen his daemon in glimpses of shadow and talons and massive wings sheltering her boy but the whole thing stopped words in her throat. Oh, what had happened to her darling, looking far more grown than any boy ought.

As if reading her mind, Peter spoke. "We became what we must be."

* * *

They road the train back to their childhood home. A place they only dimly recollected. "You haven't said much to me Peter; do you not like it?" Theodora tried stretching her wings in their train compartment. "I could try the dog?"

Peter shook his head, "No, no, I can barely remember the dog. It is not you my dear," he stroked the eagle's feathers, but his fingers expected scales. "It is me."

"We're not royalty here," Susan whispered, her Clarence nickering in agreement.

"I know." But Peter felt like something had been ripped from him when he and the others had foolishly stumbled back into this world.

Lucy smiled as no little girl should. "Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia."

Peter still felt too confined, he and Theodora stuck in wrong forms. He a man stuck as a boy, her a dragon stuck as an eagle.

A steady whining noise rose over the train's chugging. Peter stood. Theodora clenched her talons. That sound triggered a long-ago memory of fear and wrongness. "Something's—" he began.

Explosions rattled air and machine, sending train passengers staggering and toppling. The sounds of battle were different here, but they were still sounds that had filled his ears for fifteen years. Sounds that could waken him from the sleep of the dead. Peter stood, hand going for his sword, only to grip the hunting dagger he'd transported between worlds. High above, winged forms passed. Planes.

"Theodora, we need—"

"—Bigger wings," she finished.

Enemy planes instead of enemy monsters, deafening cracks instead of vile hisses but once more Peter clutched his daemon for dear life. Once more she stretched and grew and he felt his heart, his soul, do the same.

They soared on dragon's wings.

* * *

"Oh Edmund, are you okay?" Helen asked her son, who was watching the sun rise with the air of someone who had been hard at work.

"I am, and yourself?" he asked, dark eyes glancing to her dark bags. "Well, I do not see how you can be wholly at ease with Peter and Theodora in the army but fear not, he will get out alive. We learnt a thing or two in the countryside."

Helen stared at Edmund with new eyes, "Yes, I suppose you did." She hugged her last son desperately.

As soon as the military had confirmed that Theodora was a massive, fire-breathing flying lizard, they'd wasted no time recruiting Peter. For training, they said. Aerial reconnaissance, they said. Helen knew there was only one place for a dragon in war. The front lines. His youth hadn't mattered, not next to his skill. Not next to Theodora. "Don't ever be jealous of him Ed. I'm so…" her throat clogged, "Words can't express how grateful I am that you and Elanor are here."

"I am too mum," Edmund soothed, arms wrapping around her. "Thank Aslan I'm not listening to godawful stupid orders, paid for it or no."

Helen chuckled, dismissing the odd word. "You have grown so well Edmund, and so has Elanor, what a fierce little bat. Shall she stay that way you think?"

Elanor straightened, "Perhaps. Though fierce I am not," she fluttered from Edmund's shoulder to sweep around Helen, tucking fangs and claws. "But I can still fly."

"You make a lovely bat and a very useful form. How many times I have wished Achilles," the badger nudged her with a huff, "However wonderful, had wings for seeing over everyone else's heads."

Edmund left the pair to their conversation. The downside to settling was she could no longer so easily help him move a captive attacker.

* * *

How odd, that Clarence would settle with Aslan's unsettling words echoing through their heads. She stared at the wall where the gateway to Narnia had been, now the confining walls of mankind, now the stench of suffocating machines. Susan took a sharp breath and the sting of smog woke her up. "We cannot go back."

Susan said nothing but took handfuls of long, wild hair and twisted it into a tightly contained bun. They were both thinking the same thing: what use was a Queen of Narnia in England.

"England is no place of magic." For a moment Clarence hesitated in the unicorn form of royalty. "Time to let go." Then the final change swept over him. Cloven hooves for forests and meadows merged and grew larger and harder for a life of stone and asphalt. His mane and tail shrunk, legs thickening. The long, rapier-like horn shrank into a blockier, larger head.

Moments later, a classmate strutted toward them alongside her peacock.

"Oh, has he settled at last Sue? Whatever is the matter? Dear Clarence looks absolutely beautiful," Amy squealed.

"He's fine."

"He looks like a show horse, like one of those great white stallions the best riders do tricks on." She spun in a circle, "Has he settled?"

Susan nodded, staring forlornly at Clarence's bare head. Had she voiced her thoughts aloud, Amy would have laughed at such a girlish fantasy. The sorts of dreams Lucy was too old to indulge. Yet Susan had not forgotten the land where people heeded her word as much as Peter's, where no one dared presume her body theirs, where even in youth she'd been respected.

But Narnia was forever out of reach. Time to adapt to England, where there were places for beautiful white horses.

Not for unicorns.

* * *

"How is it that you have already settled? Don't you want to keep exploring?" One of Lucy's playmates sometimes asked, a little jealous, for the youngest of siblings settled first. People constantly did double-takes.

"How could I settle for all other forms?" Lucy repeated. With Aslan's blessing, Basil felt sacrilegious abandoning this form. Neither wanted to go back, especially not in un-magical England who had never heard of The Great Lion.

Students and teachers alike made way for the great lion daemon, a creature the size of a cart horse. Bullies cringed from sharp fangs and claws. Teachers gave his massive size next to her tiny one wary, contemplative looks. Everyone stared. In Narnia, the daemon could have been Aslan's son, but here in the regular world, he outshone everything save Lucy, who was bathed radiantly in his presence. Basil's presence gloomed the classrooms and grayed the school's marble statues.

Strangers did double-takes at the massive lion following such a small, sweet-looking little girl. ("But no wonder," others said, "Look at her brother.") Compared to a dragon, Basil was not so odd. Then, when Lucy set the broken leg of a girl and her daemon healed it with his breath, people _wondered_.

 **A/N:** I've never liked how shallow Susan was portrayed (by her siblings as she wasn't there) in the last book. Of the four she was the most pragmatic, rational character and we're told she turned her back on Narnia for frivolities? That doesn't sound like Susan. So I present an alternate interpretation, where she adapts to England, but so thoroughly that she lets go of her Narnian roots instead of adapting her Narnian qualities to England like her brothers, or never settling for just England as Lucy and Basil do. Hope everyone enjoyed.


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